


life just gets too heavy sometimes

by carolinaa



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14466102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinaa/pseuds/carolinaa
Summary: It doesn't take a genius to tell that something's wrong with Davey. It's inevitable that someone's going to come checking up on him, no matter how long Davey tries to put that off.





	life just gets too heavy sometimes

It's been two weeks, and Davey can still smell smoke on his clothes. He's washed them as many times as he can afford to, and there's still traces of it, not letting him forget what happened. 

Les has been home most days since, with their father, because he's made himself sick with how much he cried. Sarah's starting to go out and look for a job, as she and Davey are both pretty sure Les isn't going to recover for a while, and their father could be out of commission for a few more months. 

Sarah herself took it like she takes everything: she absorbed the news with little outwards reaction, took care of Davey's burns, then retreated to her room and didn't come out for two days. She's been a lot more subdued, hardly doing much else besides her schoolwork and sleeping, but she's coping. 

Davey is not. He's functioning daily, but he's dropped out of school for now to sell extra papers to cover what his mother used to make at her factory job. His hands are still covered in burns that are healing too slowly for him to do anything but ignore them and soldier on. He barely eats, he doesn't talk to any of the other newsies if he can help it, he doesn't cry, and above all, he doesn't tell anyone about the factory fire. He doesn't need their pity, it’s not going to bring his mother back.

Jack is worried, Davey can tell, but whenever he comes to check on Davey after work, Davey pretends to be asleep and Sarah goes to ward him off at the front door. The fire escape is complicated, and Davey's tenement is hard to find from the outside, so he hasn't had to deal with Jack coming in that way yet. 

Until now, when Davey startles at a noise on his window and looks over to find Jack knocking on it. Davey looks at him for a moment, then turns over in bed and pulls the blanket over his head. It's evening, and Davey's sold so many papers in the past few days that he doesn't have the energy to deal with this right now. He hopes Jack will take the hint, and while the knocking does stop, he hears his bedroom door opens a few minutes later and familiar footsteps come in. 

Davey curls up more under the covers and doesn't say anything. 

"Hey, Davey."

It's easier to ignore Jack under the blankets, when Davey doesn't have to avoid Jack's very intelligent and worried eyes. 

"Davey, come on." Jack sits on the edge of the bed and pokes Davey through the blanket. "I just wanna talk." 

"Go away." Davey's voice is hoarse from yelling all day. "I don't wanna talk to you."

Jack yanks the covers away from Davey's face. Davey just glares and turns away from him. 

"Tell me what's going on," Jack demands. 

"Nothing's going on," Davey mutters. 

Jack snorts. "Okay. You haven't talked to me in forever, you look like you haven't eaten a bite in weeks, and you're not going to school. Les isn't coming to hang out with Blink like he used to, and Katherine said Sarah is sad lately. What's up?" 

"I talk to you all the time." 

"Not like you used to. Don't pretend like we hasn't noticed the Walking Mouth go quiet." 

"How did you even get in?" 

"Les. Poor kid looks awful." 

"He's sick. He's been sick, since--" And here Davey stops. It's not the first time he's almost told Jack everything, and he's nothing if not completely obvious that something's wrong. But Jack has it worse. He's never had parents and he doesn't have a family and he's been living in the Manhattan lodgings since he was six. Who is Davey to be complaining to Jack, or any of the others, for that matter? 

"Since what?" Jack nudges Davey again. 

"Since the measles has been going around," Davey says lamely. 

"Les doesn't have no spots, idiot." Jack sighs. "Tell me what's wrong, or I'll just go ask your mother."

Jack has officially overstayed his welcome, and Davey tries so hard not to choke on his words as he sits up and says "She's at work, alright? Les is sick and I'm tired and you should go get a bed in the lodgings before they lock the doors." He pushes at Jack's shoulder, trying to get Jack off of his bed so he can go back to wallowing, but Jack catches his wrist and Davey realizes his mistake. 

"What the hell happened to your hands?" Jack asks, horrified. 

Davey tries to yank his arm back, but Jack’s grip is too strong. His lack of sleep and hard work have done nothing to help his burns or his general physical fitness. "Got in a tussle with the stove."

"You don't cook, Davey." Jack narrows his eyes, like he's trying to put two and two together. "Does your ma know you haven't been going to school?" 

"Yeah," Davey lies, staring at his hands instead of at Jack. They do look pretty awful, the old burns crisscrossed with scabs from where the papers scraped against them. 

"You'se lying to me, Davey." Jack releases Davey from his grip and very lightly puts a hand on Davey's knee. "Don't you trust me?" 

Davey is too ashamed to make eye contact. "I do, it's just..." 

"It's just what?" 

"You remember that headline last week about the shirtwaist factory fire?" The silence after the question hurts Davey's ears, but he sees Jack nod out of the corner of his eye, so he continues. "That's where my mom worked." 

Jack frowns. "Aw, so she's outta a job now too? That’s lousy luck. Are you the only one working? What about Les, he usually sells more than you, why is he home?" 

Davey shakes his head, blinking very determinedly to keep his eyes dry. "It's not just her job, Jack."

A beat of quiet follows, and then Jack breathes out, a sharp hiss. " _ Shit _ ." 

"I usually sell over there, I saw the smoke and I tried to run up and find her but the door on the stairwell was stuck and there were too many people and--" Davey's breath hitches, and he wants to stop, that's enough complaining, but he keeps talking. It's all he can do right, it seems. "--And I heard them all screaming, all those workers stuck up there being burned alive and a fireman pulled me out because I was coughing too bad to walk and I saw her in the window, I know it was her, I couldn't help her."

"Aw, hell, Davey..." 

Davey doesn't want sympathy from Jack, he wants his mother to be safe. He hiccups, tears very close to falling now, but he hasn't cried yet and he won't now. “I'm the only person working in my family right now, how am I supposed to feed  _ four _ of us on newsie money, Jack?”

"Come here." And then Jack is hugging him, and Davey has no idea what to do.    


The hug is over in a blink, and Davey isn't sure it happened, but it probably ends because Davey is shaking. A week of little sleep or food and too many emotions is catching up to him. 

Jack doesn't mention it, though. He just ruffles Davey's hair and clears his throat. "You coulda told me sooner, I would've been nicer to ya." 

"I don't want your pity," Davey says. 

“‘Scuse me for caring about ya, then,” Jack says, fake-offended. He glances around Davey’s tiny room. “You sell a ton of papes every day, though, you can't be that bad off.”

“If I can't make rent next month…” Davey says, and he feels like the weight of the world is on his shoulders in a way that he hadn't even felt during the strike. His family is relying on him.

“Is that why you ain't been eating?” 

“Sarah and Les and Dad get fed first.” 

Jack is quiet at that, because he understands but he isn't happy about it. 

“Anyway. You can go. Sorry.” Davey swipes at his eyes and his hand comes away wet. Dammit. “I'll manage.”

“You shouldn't hafta.” Jack looks at Davey with a very intense look, then claps Davey on the shoulder awkwardly and gets to his feet. “See ya tomorrow?”

Davey nods and looks down, because he doesn't want to see Jack leave. Truth is, he's lonely and would love to talk to Jack all evening, despite the sleep he'd miss out on. “Yeah. See you.”

And then he finally cries. It isn't subtle in a way that Jack could possibly miss it, Davey just lets out a big sobbing noise and buries his face in his knees, curled over himself to hide his tears. He knows it's childish and it isn't going to help anyone but he can't seem to stop, either, despite the hand he claps over his mouth to force himself to _stop_ _making so much noise_. 

“Woah, okay.” Jack's back on the bed in a second, an arm around Davey with his hand rubbing up and down his back. “It's okay to cry, Davey.”

“N-no it  _ isn't _ ,” Davey stutters out, trying to muffle all noises of his breakdown enough that his siblings won't hear. Sarah is worried enough about him, and Les  _ depends  _ on him. “T-tell me to shut up, I’ll shut up if you tell me--”

“You know we has a hard time making you shut up in normal circumstances,” Jack says, like he's trying to make Davey laugh, but his voice is so soft and kind that it makes Davey start crying even harder, his chest aching with the force of keeping it quiet. Jack seemingly notices that Davey’s hurting himself trying to stifle his crying and clears his throat. “You wanna go outside?” 

Davey bobs his head yes. Jack shifts to the window, sliding it open with a wooden shriek. 

They sit on the fire escape for a while, waiting for Davey to cry himself out. While it takes much longer than is probably acceptable, Jack doesn't complain or even move from Davey’s side the whole time. 

“Better?” Jack asks, when Davey’s shaking has been subdued to a mild shiver. He produces a dirty handkerchief from his pocket, and Davey mops at his face with it as he nods. 

Davey finds himself dreading when Jack has to leave now, a full attitude change from when he'd violently hoped Jack wouldn't check on him earlier. He wishes he'd trusted Jack earlier, so he hadn't been suffering on his own for so long. 

Jack shifts next to him, and Davey reaches out on instinct and grabs Jack’s hand to keep him from going anywhere. It hurts his burns, but he doesn't relinquish his grip. When Jack looks at Davey with a question in his eyes, Davey asks, “Could you stay?”

“For sure,” Jack says gently, and he does. 


End file.
